A staple complaint of the climate sceptic, that its impossible to determine the impact of historical volcanic eruptions on the climate, is a step closer to being spiked, courtesy of work at the University of Copenhagen.

The universitys Matthew Johnson, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, has published work conducted with the Tokyo Institute of Technology in which he uses the isotopes captured in old sulphur to determine the scale of eruptions.

As explained in the universitys announcement, the work is designed to resolve the often-conflicting dates attached to recorded eruptions. Dating is difficult from ancient records, since historians may have been setting down their accounts years after the event, and there are discrepancies between different calendar systems in use.

Johnson explains that ice cores provide an accurate way to date the chemicals associated with a volcanic eruption, but until now, the scale of the eruption has been difficult to determine. The sulphur isotopes, he says, provide a way to prove whether a given eruption was so explosive that it entered the stratosphere, affecting global climate and civilizations, or, whether a given eruption was confined to the troposphere and local in its effects.

Since a large and powerful eruption sends a plume into the stratosphere, it reacts with sunlight to produce a different isotopic signature when the dust finally settles back to Earth. Capturing that signature should allow climate historians to work out whether a major event was associated with volcanism.

Citing some of the more contentious eruptions, he continues: The Mediterranean island of Santorini blew apart and caused the end of the Minoan culture. But there is a huge debate about when exactly this occurred. 1601 was the 'year without a summer' - but nobody knows where the volcano was that erupted. There is debate over whether there was an eruption on Iceland in 527, or 535, or 541.

"The sulphur isotope trick is a definite method to solve debates like this and get the most information out of the ice core records. ®

A staple complaint of the climate sceptic, that its impossible to determine the impact of historical volcanic eruptions on the climate, is a step closer to being spiked... the work is designed to resolve the often-conflicting dates attached to recorded eruptions... ice cores provide an accurate way to date the chemicals... "The Mediterranean island of Santorini blew apart and caused the end of the Minoan culture. But there is a huge debate about when exactly this occurred. 1601 was the 'year without a summer' -- but nobody knows where the volcano was that erupted...

The match for Santorini was a volcano in the Arctic; leaving aside the imaginary nature of the Santorini supereruption in the 2nd millennium BC, Minoan civilization fell to Mycenaean Greek invaders, both on Crete and on Cyprus.

This is just more of the same misrepresentations of data and building strawman arguments by inventing what the opposition was supposed to say to support the Global Warming meme. Measurements of the sulfur are problematic towards drawing conclusions about climate, because the aerial distributions are too erratic to do so.

The catastrophic eruption of Santorini is certainly not imaginary. It did erupt explosively and catastrophically as the geology clearly demonstrates. Its role in the destruction of the Mediterranean civilizations of the period is a different question. There is abundant evidence that the Sea People came from Northern Europe in a mass migration after yet to be fully described catastrophes drowned the coastal regions and destroyed the agriculture in the region. It is not uncommon for migrations and invasions to occur in the wake of major ctastrophes. The massive destruction in the wake of Santorini and/ore the sequence of major earthquakess occuring in the Eastern Mediterranean about this time give good reson to suspect the Sea People were exploiting an opportunity made available by the catastrophe.s.

There’s no evidence that there was a mid-2nd M “supereruption”; the eruption that put a few inches to a few feet of crud over Akrotiri is attested from one surviving ancient source, and dates to about 200 BC. There’s literally nothing to any of the late-19th c claim (that is when it originated) that is supported by geology. There’s a lot of CLAIMS that there is support, but none of them make sense. There’s a tiny (mm’s thick) layer of ash found in one end of Crete; there’s zero evidence of any tsunami; the caldera is prehistoric by 10s of 1000s of years; and it would be reasonable to expect the tsunami to have headed for the Greek mainland, given the way the crater now opens to the sea (again, that event was prehistoric).

There’s no evidence that the Sea People existed as they’re described today, and zero evidence of any homeland, except for assignments of modern placenames that sort of match the list in one Egyptian account. Given that there was no supereruption, that the conventional pseudochronology places the Sea People 300 to 400 years *after* the supereruption (which , though fictional, is dated from 1628 BC up to and through 1500 BC; Sea People dated some time after 1200 BC), even the math doesn’t work.

The (apparently) most recent Linear B texts that survive have Latin loanwords, which can’t be explained except by the obvious errors in dating in the conventional pseudochronology — Linear B remained in use, parallel with classical Greek writing, until sometime after the Romans arrived in Greece.

12
posted on 02/15/2013 3:21:22 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)

Theres no evidence that there was a mid-2nd M supereruption; the eruption that put a few inches to a few feet of crud over Akrotiri is attested from one surviving ancient source, and dates to about 200 BC.

I did not say anything about there being s supervolcano, so you are inventing a strawman argument and arguing with yourself. I wrote about there being a catastrophic eruption, and such a catastrophic eruption can be one of the largest volcanic eruptions to be experienced in the human history of civilization without being a supervolcano as you have attempted to falsely change my comments.

The catastrophic eruption occurred at about 1613 B.C.E. +/- 13 years, according to a variety of lines of evidence ranging from radiocarbon dating to archealogical comparisons. Akrotiri was buried in a serise of eruption stages in this event. The initial stage put a light layer of ash on the town, enough to prompt the evacuation of the community. It appears the inhabitants were returning from somewhere nearby to recover valued property when the community was buried under ash and pumice tens of feet thick. Soon after the first stage and before the rainfall could disturb the first ashfall. Your denials to the contrary and claimed date of 200 B.C. are simply ludicrous. The eruption produced a new cone that then collapsed in upon itself, producing the steam explosion as the new flows reached the bay. Recent submarine and geological research has doubled the estimate of the eruption to 60 square kilometers of material from this eruptionin about 1600-1627 B.C.E

Theres literally nothing to any of the late-19th c claim (that is when it originated) that is supported by geology.

Since the late-19th c claim is not what was being discussed and you have not identified what claim you are talking about, your denial of it is irrelevant to the topic. Sufficee it to observe, however, the geological evidence of ashfall on nearby and distant land and sea confirms the major eruption of Thera in about 1620-127 B.C.E.

Theres a lot of CLAIMS that there is support, but none of them make sense. Theres a tiny (mms thick) layer of ash found in one end of Crete; theres zero evidence of any tsunami; the caldera is prehistoric by 10s of 1000s of years; and it would be reasonable to expect the tsunami to have headed for the Greek mainland, given the way the crater now opens to the sea (again, that event was prehistoric).

It is each of your claims which are wrong, so there is evidence of the major eruption of Thera. The thin layer of volcanic ash on the nearest end of Crete comes from a different volcano’s eruption at another time. There may be some small evidence of some ash making it to Crete from the first stage of Thera’s eruption about 120-1627 B.C.E., it would not have been significant enough to cause any serious damage in Crete. The great bulk of the ashfall was blown by the winds to the east and northeast of Thera. Significant ashfall occurred in Anatolia in particular.

There is abundant evidence of tsunami from Thera’s eruption striking the coastline of Crete. As many BBC and other videos illustrate, pumice carried from Thera’s eruption to Crete by the tsunami can still be found today along the coastline of Crete. Scientific studies currently describe multiple tsunami resulting from the earthquakes and the collapse of the newly made caldera, and the steam explosion that produced tsunami with wave heights to greater than 60 feet high. These events occurred in about 1620-1627, and not in the prehistoric period. The sediment layering and about 60 square kilometers of eruption material for these events lie atop the 18th Century B.C.E. artifacts and geology. Consequently, your comments are purely nonsensical because they are so obviously and impossibly contrary to the evidence.

Theres no evidence that the Sea People existed as theyre described today, and zero evidence of any homeland, except for assignments of modern placenames that sort of match the list in one Egyptian account.

The Sea Peoples we know without doubt did exist, and we know this by many lines of evidence. One of those important lines of evidence is the Egyptian’s written record in which the Egyptians literally named the raiders and invaders the Sea Peoples. Furthermore, the existence of the Sea Peoples is attested by the genomes they left behind in the Mediterraneean populations.

Given that there was no supereruption, that the conventional pseudochronology places the Sea People 300 to 400 years *after* the supereruption (which , though fictional, is dated from 1628 BC up to and through 1500 BC; Sea People dated some time after 1200 BC), even the math doesnt work.

As noted before, the supervolcano claim is your own strawman invention. The dating of the Sea People would be incorrect with respect to the Minoan collapse only when the dating precedes the 1620-1627 B.C.E. eruption of Thera. The Sea Peoples raids and invasions centuries after the eruption of Thera makes perfect sense, because it is typical for it to take one or more centuries to build the alliances and confederacies necessary to successfully challenge a group of first-rate empires substantially weakened by the direct and indirect consequences of one or more natural catastrophes.

The (apparently) most recent Linear B texts that survive have Latin loanwords, which cant be explained except by the obvious errors in dating in the conventional pseudochronology  Linear B remained in use, parallel with classical Greek writing, until sometime after the Romans arrived in Greece.

So what? Those were written scripts used exclusively by a very small number of royal palace scribes to conduct royal administration of the empire with a very small number of records on clay tablets. The Sea Peoples are known to have been a wide assortment of different people with widely different languages and cultures. The principal commonality was the opportunity to exploit the wealth and resources of the weakened empires upon whom they preyed. Since the specialized royal scripts did not memorialize the words of the spoken languages common to these people, The word loans reflect more upon the imperial business of the empires under attack than the affairs of the raiders and invaders whenever they made no use of these royal adminstrative scripts.

My mentioning a supereruption is based on what the (fictional) Thera eruption in 2nd m BC is generally called now, and obviously wasn’t a straw man.

> The catastrophic eruption occurred at about 1613 B.C.E. +/- 13 years, according to a variety of lines of evidence ranging from radiocarbon dating to archealogical comparisons.

No, in fact, there are none.

The stages of burial of Akrotiri shows that the eruption wasn’t catastrophic, except of course for the inhabitants of the island.

The caldera, including the opening into the sea, is prehistoric by 10s of 1000s of years.

The 19th century claim began the Thera-ended-Minoan-civilization meme, so yes, that is what is being discussed.

There’s no distant ashfall from Thera, other than tiny traces in (as mentioned before) Crete and Anatolia. Other supposed evidence such as the pumice carved into a serving tray for a pharaoh during the New Kingdom in Egypt was saddled on for years as evidence for the fictional supereruption. When it was finally analyzed, it turned out to be from the volcano of Kos, 100s of 1000s of years ago. At that point, the architect of the 17th c BC higher dating of the eruption suddenly denied that the pumice tray was important.

There’s zero evidence of a tsunami on Crete. Remains of a 3000 year old building near the seashore was, surprise surprise, in bad condition. Again, zero evidence of a tsunami.

The Egyptians mentioned the Sea People; clearly they are not northern European or anything else particularly. The Egyptians gave enigmatic names that fit well enough when the events are moved to their correct century and the people who were around at that time.

Your rationalization for the centuries gap between the (fictional) Theran supereruption and the Sea People makes no sense at all — if a volcanic eruption was so devastating, the time to strike was immediately, not centuries later when major players had many generations to recover. It’s a ridiculous picture you paint, a group lurking just outside a cloud of ash, biding their time and sharpening their weapons for four, five, or six centuries, or more. This probably explains your missing the point about the significance of the Linear B — there was no dark age, there was no massive Sea People invasion.

Somehow the Sea People managed to be recorded in just one place — Egypt — and left no distinctive burials, no distinctive weapons, no pottery, no *shipwrecks*, no sign of any inscriptions, no settlements, no cities, no towns, no homeland, quite an achievement. THAT is the way the Sea People are portrayed, and it makes no sense.

14
posted on 02/16/2013 12:55:08 PM PST
by SunkenCiv
(Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)

What you have written about denying the eruption of Thera and your claimed non-existence of the Sea People is sheer nonsense. So, for the benefit of the other readers the following links will provide some interesting reading and illustrations. You can go ahead and wallow in the ignorance of your fantasy world.

> What you have written about denying the eruption of Thera and your claimed non-existence of the Sea People is sheer nonsense.

Speaking of straw men, you’ve just constructed two: there was no supereruption of Thera (or “catastrophic eruption” as you put it, claiming it wasn’t the same thing but claiming the same effects for it) in historic times, there was however an eruption as late as 200 BC which covered up Akrotiri AS I’VE STATED ABOVE. The Sea People were not, as you claim, some kind of large alliance of otherwise unattested and unknown people all arriving and defeating a bunch of great kingdoms — AS I’VE STATED ABOVE that is a ridiculous fantasy made necessary by the conventional pseudochronology.

There are numerous topics on FR about Thera, no need to run off to other sites to find the delusional system that there was a supereruption there which brought about the end of the Minoan civilization — either 80 or 180 years later, as they must have it, since the (imaginary) supereruption and the termination of the Minoan civilization were not simultaneous.

16
posted on 02/18/2013 12:23:26 AM PST
by SunkenCiv
(Romney would have been worse, if you're a dumb ass.)

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